HONDA e Prototype | Fully Charged

Hello and welcome to a slightly secretive episode of Fully Charged. I'm in a studio complex just outside of Stuttgart in Germany, but I'm actually here to see a Japanese car. A Japanese concept car that back in 2017 when it was released in the Frankfurt Motor Show ended up being one of the most popular cars of the year. I did a film for it for you guys at the Tokyo Motor Show and it became one of Fully Charged's most popular, most viewed videos. It is of course Honda's Urban EV. Yeah, one of the sexiest cars, plug-in or not, seen in the last few years. But today I'm going to see what we believe to be the next generation car. The car that is quite close to reality. A car that's going to go on sale this year. And it's through here and it's a very bright light and I'm excited. Okay, so we've just had the press briefing from Nick Pearson at Honda GB, the marketing man. I've actually got a chance now to go behind this and see it for the first time before the scrum. There it is, wow. So it's not the Urban EV, it's the Honda e-prototype. It looks tiny in this studio. It is small, 3.9 meters long, five door only. And when I actually, when I saw the spy pics of it being tested as a five door, I was like, oh, that might ruin it, that beautiful shape. But actually looking at it now, it kind of works. I know how excited you guys are on Fully Charged because when we showed you the concept of it, everyone went crazy for it. In fact, non-EV enthusiasts got hot under the collar about this car. I've got about a minute before other people start coming in, so I'm going to properly Jules Holland this. You've got the charge port on the nose, look. See, this is the charging area. They made a real focal point of this. You've still got these sort of concave, really nice kind of mask style grilles with the characterful eyes, the LED. Lots of gloss black here, two tone with satin white body. Look, no mirrors, real cameras. I think they're going to make it into production. I've been told this is fairly close to production. I blimmin' hope so. It's four seats, not five seats. The range is 200 kilometers WLTP. So what's that, about 120 miles, so not huge. But remember, it was always urban centric, this car, always. Panasonic cells. It's rear wheel drive, man. Rear engine, or rear motored, rear wheel drive. And that's the format they're going to go with, which is really exciting. How cool is that? They're going to make it in Japan, and they're going to make it left hand drive and right hand drive. And you are going to be able to buy this car this year, 2019. You might even get it delivered, we hope, this year. So what you're looking at, fingers crossed, digits crossed, everything crossed. The car that we buy will look really similar to that, or maybe be that. Let's try and find out. I'm going to go and... I won't touch it, because I'm not allowed to touch it. But I'm going to go and sort of get really close and intimate with it, which is not a George Holland thing at all. Wrong reference. Hi, pleased to meet you. You're the project manager of this car. So did you feel quite a big responsibility taking this car from the concept, which everybody in the world seemed to admire, and bringing it to a production ready or near production ready state? So yes, indeed, I felt quite some pressure, because the concept had a huge positive feedback, which we haven't expected in that extent. But on the other hand, of course, that was also a challenge for us and gave us motivation to really build a good mass production vehicle. I have the keys to this car, but I'm not allowed to drive it because no one is. But I'm here with Ken Sahara. Ken, you're the leader, the design leader of the exterior of this car. So you had a pretty big challenge to take the car from urban EV to this, the e-concept, into a car that's much, much closer to reality. Where did you start? Where? Yeah. I started with deciding on the overall proportions of the car. And one important aspect of this car is that we've got the batteries located underneath the floor. Under the floor, yeah. And we've placed it between the wheels, which means that the wheelbase is quite long in comparison to the overall length of the car. So that's something that we had to consider. If you look at the wheelbase, you come around here, the wheels are really, really close to the outside of the car. There's not much in the way of overhang at all. The reason why we have chosen a rear-wheel drive is, on one hand, in order to have a good standing start, it is always beneficial to have your drive axis on the rear because of the weight distribution when accelerating. If you have a rear-wheel drive, basically your front wheels are free. This enables a much greater angle for turning. This enables a much smaller turning radius on the front wheels. I see. Because it's an urban-focused car. Exactly. Yeah, I think it's really easy to draw this car. Do you? How quickly did you draw the shape? Do you think it was... Actually, yeah, first sketch is just like I draw egg and car separation. Really? That's a really fast sketch. Okay. At that time, that's a monobody one. Yeah. But finally, I applied the first-generation Civic, like typical two-box hatchback style. Yeah. Would you call this car a retro style? I don't. No? This is not retro. At least, I didn't try to make this car retro. Yeah. Because I think you're right. I think at first you go, oh, it looks like an old Civic. Yeah. But actually, no, it's very, very modern. You know, the face of it's very modern. Yeah, it's very interesting. Some people look at this like futuristic and some people say it's retro. Yeah. Yeah, both in the same car. It's a very interesting point. Yeah. Okay. So the front here, you've got this kind of eye mask, kind of Zorro style black face. You've got the LED headlights. The perimeter is the indicator because there's no indicators here. And also the side repeater indicators are on this little camera kind of nodule. It's actually beautifully simple. The illuminated Honda logo, which I love. I don't know if that could become reality or not. There's a camera up there. There's obviously all the reversing parking sensors, gubbins here. But it's actually quite a flat front end. Not much in the way of protruding bumpers. You sometimes get ugly bumpers on production cars. So this bodes well, ladies and gents. That's where the air, the air goes in here, the air cooling. Yeah. It's down here. It's quite shallow. Yeah. Only this space. This is all completely enclosed. What's, what's in here? This is a radar. Radar. Okay. Okay. Look at that lovely little concave face there. And this groove on the bonnet, which goes all the way along. And on the concept car, you might remember this as well. The groove continues along the body and then it hooks back on this C pillar, which people fell in love with because it reminds them a bit of the first generation Civic. And some people said the Giugiaro designed Mark I VW Golf, which I kind of see. Was that always the kind of inspiration, the first generation Civic? Or was that just a coincidence? Especially this part is, I got really big inspiration from first generation Civic. Yeah. Which I love. Did you make the decision about the five door because of practicality or was it the wheel base or was it? Yeah, actually both. And also this is a urban car. Yeah. So if there's a big door, it's kind of a problem when you park the really narrow street. And the door is much bigger. Smaller door is more easy to open. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't thought of that. I love the fact that you've hidden the back handles. Handle. You can see they've really tried to disguise this back door so it doesn't interrupt the sort of smoothness of the body. And the other thing I have just noticed as I've been pointing is that the doors are frameless, which is a real Japanese-y thing to do on a five door car. So frameless doors like you get on sports cars. Flush door handles. So they come out when I unlock it. They flick out. There's a light in there. Yes. That's very cool. This is sensor lock. Oh, so you can use your fingers and your thumb. Right. Oh, this doesn't feel concept car-y. It feels finished. Yeah. Especially this part. This part is really concept car-like. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. But I promise this is production. Really? Wow. Wider arches than the original Urban EV. These are quite sporty for something that's urban. So who knows? There could be a Type R edition on the horizon. That would be cool, wouldn't it? Do you think we would ever see a Type R version? A sportier version? Of course, everybody at Honda is thinking about sporty directions. And I think even the market and customers are expecting a sporty direction and derivative from Honda. However, what we wanted to do first is to really deliver a proper electric vehicle in order to demonstrate quality and the benefit of an EV. And from that starting point, we are, of course, free and also ready to think about a sporty derivative. That's a good answer. This was even bigger on the concept car, actually. So it's interesting that they've put it up there instead of in this black mask-y face. So if I press this button, this lid will lift. Let's see, shall we? And there we have Type 2 and CCS. You've made like a feature of the, almost like an engine kind of cover on the top. What made you guys do that rather than maybe putting it here or hiding it? You're not hiding it, you're celebrating it. Yes, that's the point of this design because this is a symbol of EV. So you want to touch every day to charge this one. That's the difference between EV and gasoline car. You don't charge gasoline car every day, right? But EV, every customer charging every day. That's the different style of EV and gasoline car. So that's why I made this one very special location and special looking. So actually this is glass. This glass, is it? Yeah, you can touch it. I'm really wary of touching this car because this is the only one. Right, so you wanted it to feel special, which is why you didn't make it out of plastic. Yeah, plastic is kind of light. That's interesting. Right, okay. Let's go around to the back because this is probably my favorite bit. What's in here? This is rear fog lamp for European market. Oh, is that a fog lamp on there? Okay. Only one LED. Yeah. And this is a backup lamp. Oh, okay. Yeah, so a pair of the reversing lights. Yeah, what's important is that you see the front headlamps in a complete circle, which is the same for the rear. And what it signifies is that you start off with the complete circle and then you end with the complete circle. That allows us to keep the purity of the design. And these are the words that Soichiro Honda said, that it's important to have the circle, triangle and the square. And what those shapes signifies is that the circle shows harmony. Yeah. Triangle is being advanced. Okay. And also the square is function. And with this car, we put an importance on the circle, the harmony part. Right, okay. So you can see so many circle motifs. Lots of circles. Lots of lozenge. This kind of lozenge. Yeah, even here. Yeah. There's a lot of oval lozenge shapes, which I like. And a lot of chamfered edges. I had a Nissan Cube, which had a lot of these chamfered edges. And the Cube is a design masterpiece, I think. Let's talk about the inside of it. For a small car, it has a very grown-up, spacious, lounge-like interior. The interior is a very important interface between man and machine. We have performed a lot of research looking at other manufacturers, like the i3, as a competitor for this size of car. But actually, we didn't find an answer until we actually got the positive feedback on our concept car. That helped the direction of the interior design. The monitors are now big monitors, like a flat-screen TV. The instrument panel is like a tabletop. The seats are like sofas. So the whole interior concept became a living room. Yeah, I think it's exactly that. I've been allowed to sit inside the E-Concept, which is great, because in a matter of two weeks, it's going to get absolutely mobbed by people at the Geneva Motor Show. I'm with Akinori, and he's the interior leader of the project. First thing I'm going to say is how true to the concept it feels. And what's amazing about it is it feels production-ready. Wherever I look, it looks like it could go into production. It doesn't look too concept-y. It feels like you're sitting in a mature lounge, which is very uncharacteristic of a small car most of the time. What we wanted to do, especially in this compact car, is not for the technology to be too intrusive. Even though it's a compact car, giving you sort of a living room lounge-type space. I would not have thought wood would work in a small, unconventional car, but it does seem to work. And is it real wood? I don't know. It's actually textured film, so it's not real wood. It looks and feels like real wood. And having that thickness that we need, which will give you that feeling. Yeah, I would have never thought synthetic wood would make a comeback in cars, but it just works. You've got the two-tone. All I'm looking at is the body. The roof looks like it's sort of floating. Looks like there's a glass roof. That roof is really heavily tinted black glass. I thought it was black painted, but it's not. It's glass. So that bodes quite well for a bit of interior ambience. Look, another lozenge shape. These are obviously the e-tron. The Audi e-tron has production cameras on it. And this car, I think, is going to come to production with cameras. You can see the screens inside, just like the concept car. And that huge, full-width touchscreen setup. The advantage of having digital images is because, for example, if you can imagine a car that's driving behind you, and the headlights are too bright or whatever, normally with the physical mirror, it's too bright. Whereas with this one, because it's a digital image, you can lower the brightness, and it will be easier for the driver to see what's happening. So that's an advantage. When you park, it will give you guided lines on the screen to allow you to better parallel park. The side cameras, I presume they are much more aerodynamic. Yes. Huge improvement. Because it's tiny. Yes. In fact, the arches of the car are wider than the mirror. So you're probably not going to hit that before hitting this. That's right. Correct. I'm trying to remember back to the concept. I know it had a bench seat in the front. And although the bench is gone, which is a little bit sad, it's been replaced by a very compact centre console, which is good because it doesn't feel too bulky. And of course, there's more leg space. And then, of course, it's got a more practical back seat, which I like, which is nice and flat. I'm going to get in the back of the prototype now. You notice that the floor, although it's flat in this car, it's quite high. So as a consequence, a tall, blanky person like me probably feels like the legs are a bit high because you can see this is quite shallow, but it's lovely and rounded in a kind of sofa-type way. And this is upholstered on the side here, I've noticed, which is cool. You've got a light button here. It's a four-seater, this car, not a five-seater. So you feel like you've probably got a little bit more elbow room and a bit more knee space than you would have if it was a five. Totally flat seat, which is quite refreshing. It's not sculpted or sporty, because remember, this is supposed to be a kind of lounge-like feel. It'd be nice if there was a whole glass roof, but maybe that's going to be an option when it comes to production. Why is it not five-seater? Why did you go for four seats instead of five? We have limited space in terms of its width. It's quite narrow. Its use case is going to be city driving. So more space for four rather than less space for five, yeah. Comfortable travel, four-seater's fine. Obviously, this is a five-door only car. It's pretty small. It's a flat entry boot. It's kind of Fiat 500 size, really. But I guess this is an urban car, so it's all about making it quite compact in terms of dimensions. What was the hardest part? If there was one thing that you could choose, what would be the biggest challenge? So the biggest challenge and the biggest hurdle I faced during development was actually the size of the car. The size. Which is resulting from the size of the battery. Many other OEMs are going direction bigger cars, SUVs, because they want to improve and enhance the range of the car, which is at the moment the negative aspect of an electric vehicle. However, I tried to convince the management in direction of a small electric vehicle and also to make everybody understand that it will be acceptable on the market. It's a B-segment car. This is 10 centimetres longer than a Honda Jazz, just to give you an idea of what you're looking at. This is their big battery statement, and it's actually quite a small package. An urban package. Because why do you want an SUV when you live in a city, right? Right? Honda has always been the master of mass production. Hopefully, you'll be able to make these, you know, en masse. We will be sure to produce enough numbers so that the whole world will understand we are serious in producing this electric vehicle en masse. Good. I like what I'm seeing here, that the buttons for the essential things aren't buried inside the touchscreen world. So we said, okay, things like volume for audio, so the heater controls, these kind of important... This all works. I've just realised, as you're talking to me, I've put my heated seat on and it is actually working. This isn't really a concept car, is it? How close to this is it finished? It feels finished. I'm looking around it and it doesn't look concept. It looks completed. I've really put my heated seat on. What's your favourite part about it? What I probably like most is the actual driving performance and driving behaviour of the car. Feels very agile and with good handling capability. You don't see two-spoke steering wheels very often and I really like them. This steering wheel looks like it's from a much more expensive car. We wanted to get rid of this idea that if it's going to be a compact car, it has to have cheap parts because this is the first mass-produced EV that Honda is going to introduce to the world and if it's going to be that, then we wanted it not to be characterised as it would have been with other conventional vehicles and that's why we said, well, we're going to break that mould and try to incorporate something that's higher in quality into a compact car. Are these paddles for the regenerative braking? It's used for the degree of recuperation that you can control with these paddles. Excellent. I do love a bit of adjustable recoup. The seat fabric is something special. It is called a melange texture fabric that's really normally used in sofas and furniture and this is the first time we've used such fabric in a Honda vehicle. Do you think that we're going to see an increased range version? This is, of course, something we have considered once battery technology has evolved in a certain magnitude. Where energy density is sufficiently increased, then we might maintain the same packaging but have versions with a longer range. This platform is a very flexible platform and it can be surely used also for other models. It's not the case that Honda will develop derivative models just because we have this platform but it will be when there is a demand on the market for a certain model. Only that, you've got a spoiler up here and a third brake light but there's no other mad wings, lips. This goes completely against what Honda's current design language is like, thank goodness. Because Honda have just, they've been way too fussy with their design in the last few years and this addresses that. I mean, look at it. It's a really, really cool little beast, isn't it? So do you think this is the shape of things to come? Well, if you talk about it in terms of the styling itself, I don't think it will be used in other car models. Civic, CR-V, is it going to carry the same styling? No, I don't think so. But if you look into the value and the importance of keeping it simple, that is something that attracts people. It's a common currency across the world. It's something that's universal. Yeah, it's not trying too hard to be futuristic. That's exactly it. But yet there is so much technology inside and underneath. Do you think this is one of the biggest challenges or most important projects you've worked on? Yes, for sure. Up to now, I have been working mainly on minor model change where the target of the vehicle but also the target customer was more or less fixed. This time, nothing was fixed. So within this huge amount of degree of freedom, we had to define our targets. That was really a big challenge. And then looking back now, it surely was one of my biggest tasks I had so far at Honda. On screen, I can see one screen goes into another. Like here now, pre-condition, climate, the schedule. What is interesting from here onwards is that we will have apps which will specifically be for this car. And we're thinking that as the car evolves, so will the apps and so will the functionalities that we can provide later on. So it's sort of like a maturing at the same rate. So yeah, there will be a lot more to come in terms of the app development. Yeah, one thing I want to point out is what you saw just down there with the pocket that is made of the same fabric as the seats. And the reason why we put it there and why it's also fabric is because normally if you have... If you want to place your smartphone in a traditional car, then you would put it in a cup holder or somewhere around the center console. And as you drive, it's going to rattle around because it's not fit snugly. And also thinking about how this car will be used, it's probably going to be essential in the future to have connectivity, meaning that you will have your mobile on tethering or other means to connect with the car in the outside world. And when you think about that, we want to put your smartphone in a safe place. That's reassuring that's not going to rattle about. These wheels here, they look really big, I think, in this car. But actually, I've just looked, they're 17s. They look bigger, they look like 19s. This design, it's kind of like an old clock or something like that. It reminds me of 1970s Porsche 914 gas burner wheels. They called them gas burners because they kind of look like a gas hop. I love this style. Also really easy to clean, thinking practically. And wheels are really important on a car. Yes, that's right. They make or break a car sometimes. So this disc has a reason to hide this brake rotor. Okay. Because we're using a lot of regenerative braking, it's very easy to get dirty because it's not using the mechanical brakes. That's why this disc is hiding that. Are you nervous about revealing this to the world at Geneva, given how excited and affectionate people have been towards the Urban EV concept? Honestly spoken, the concept car was not before the prototype. It was actually the other way around, that we already worked on the mass production model and for show purpose, we created the concept car. Really? Yes. Shock horror. There are some aspects we have actually transported from the concept car because of the high positive feedback. That's interesting. So they're the same age? Well, actually, the concept car is younger. Wow. So this was first. And for the purpose of exhibition, the designers actually created on purpose the concept car. Oh my goodness. Yes. So therefore, we are actually quite confident because that's the original and the concept car was just for display purpose. That's amazing. We are so confident that potential customers will like this just because the concept was accepted that well. Has that been done at Honda before? As far as I know, it has never been before. No, me neither. But that shows the sort of Honda confidence that I love. So looking at it now, I have to say, when I heard it was going to be 5 door, I was a little upset. But now I've had a chance to really absorb it and digest it and look around it. I think it works. I think it works really well. And we know it's going on sale this year, 2019. That's right. But how close to reality is this car that I am looking at right now? This is 95% production. Impressive. That's more than I was expecting you to say. There you go. You've heard it. On sale this year, left hand, right hand drive. 95% as you will be able to buy it. Wow. I just want to see it on the road now with... Yeah. In the real world. Yeah, I bet you do. You've been looking at this for a long time in secret. Yeah. Like two years. Fantastic. Thank you so much for letting me look around it. Thank you very much. I really... You and your team, Ken, have done a storming job, I think. This is a big part of Honda's history. Already. Well, I hope it does make history for Honda. I think it's great. Yeah, please buy one. Probably will. Unless my wife's watching, in which case I might not. It's been great to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time. And I can't wait to drive it as soon as possible. So thank you very much. Thank you. It's been great. Thanks a lot. Product with soul. Noiseless design. These are things which Honda have mentioned with this car. The e-prototype. I think when Honda tread their own path, they do it so, so well. When Honda try and follow the crowd, they often fail. This, I think this is a pioneering piece of design. The range isn't quite as good as I was expecting it to be. Although they haven't said it's fully, fully confirmed yet. We are looking at a 95% finished product that will go on sale this year. I think that is exciting. And exciting is a really crucial word here. Because EVs can be efficient and EVs can be reliable. But for me, cars also, they have to be exciting. They have to be interesting. They have to have some character. What is that if not a character? Thank you for watching, as usual. If you're a subscriber, I don't need to ask you to subscribe. And if you're a patron to the Fully Charged show, well, we couldn't do it without you. So thanks very much. Now, if you excuse me, I'm just going to relax a while. Just take it all in. In through the nose. I know that's out through the nose. Hang on, this is just complicated.